Seems like the question is more one of the type of cemetery, rather than
whether or not X number of interments makes a cemetery. State law in
Kentucky specifies that if there is some evidence that a tract of land
has been set aside as a burial ground (this usually means notation on a
deed, headstones, or sometimes historic data up to and including
informant interviews), then it is a cemetery. The specific law makes no
mention of a required number of interments, implying that a cemetery
doesn't even have to include burials. 
Anyone have any examples of historic contexts for cemeteries that have
defined types in specific geographic locales? Here, I tend to split them
into family, church-associated cemetery, rural community, rural
commercial, institutional, and urban commercial. Most of the
non-commercial cemeteries show a strong Upland South Folk influence,
which appears to be spread across most of the Appalachians and much of
the surrounding areas. 


Daniel B. Davis
Archaeologist Coordinator
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Division of Environmental Analysis
200 Mero Street
Frankfort, KY 40622
(502) 564-7250

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ron
May
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 2:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: urban cemeteries

George raised an interesting side issue, who defines a cemetery? For  
decades, the State of California defined a cemetery as the location of
six or  more 
human interments. During the early years of the National Environmental
Policy 
Act and California Environmental Quality Act, archaeology recoveries of

prehistoric human remains in lesser numbers raised the ire of Native
American  
groups, who lobbied the State Legislature and definitions were changed
to one  
single human interment as constituting a legal cemetery. That should
settle  
that, but as recently as this past  year, one archaeologist questioned
whether 
the location of 29 human interments at the University of California, San
Diego 
campus constituted a cemetery. So the question comes down to whether or
not 
the people who did the burying considered it a cheerer or not, as
opposed to  
the existing state law. Or does it?
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
 
 
In a message dated 6/24/2008 7:22:28 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

One I  was involved with, I am not sure meets the criteria, though it is

in   or adjacent to the New York State Urban Cultural Park at Sacketts 
Harbor,  NY (last I heard there were 14, i.e., Buffalo, NY Theater
District, 
the  area in Ossining, NY next to the Sing-Sing Prison and the first 
Croton  Aqueduct exhibit, a Erie Canal Lock in Syracuse, NY, and some 
others)  which resulted after the Berger Co., found some scattered 
human remains in  their shovel tests and were kind enough to visit from 
their work at nearby  Fort Drum, NY to relocate the datum they had used,

even though the client  had not paid them.

The parade grounds at Madison Barracks is an  adaptive reuse of historic

resources that were built on for a planned  retirement community on 
Lake Ontario and part of what was once the largest  military site in the

US and some say the "birthplace" of the US Navy, over  the War of 1812. 
A small extant cemetery is there, with cast iron fence  from Buckingham 
Palace as a token of peace offered after the hostilities,  which in an 
invasion of what has become Toronto, a bombproof there blew up  in 
preparation of a "special weapon" which killed Zebulon Pike (western  
explorer/ officer of Pike's Peak fame) which resulted in the retaliatory

bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD and the burning of the  
White House. Zebulon Pike was returned in a barrel to Sacketts Harbor  
and thought to be buried in said cemetery though at the time it was not

clear to us working in the what has become known as Fort Pike but at  
the time Volunteer Fort, manned by then grayed veterans of the  
American Revolutionary War.

When other remains were found in the  parade field, where by the way 
Ulysses S. Grant first served after  graduation from the West Point 
Academy (later as a Captain on Governors  Island, NYC) we called the 
coroners office (as required in most states of  the US when human 
remains are found, or you might be charged in messing  with a crime 
scene) as the remaining buildings are used as rental units  (the main 
barracks had fallen down perhaps in one of the northern NY state  
earthquakes, a 5.1 I experienced at Fort Drum in 1983) but they only  
offered there services to work on the weekends as the remains were  
definitely historic. We thought the shallow finds disarticulated
discards  
of war or other processes until, near the surface, Angela Schuster, now
a  
senior editor of "Archaeology" magazine and I discovered 
the  "archetypal" coffin outline, however for someone of a quite short 
stature  of perhaps disarticulated by war. That stopped one of the 
condominiums  rapidly going up around us and the area of the 
former "parade field" was  left alone, I hope, At least that was the way
I 
remember working there for  Greenhouse Consultant, Inc., with William 
Sandy, RPA (who markets  flotation processing and the equipment). 

It was at one time decidedly  "urban" today, still has that feeling, 
though many of the structures of  the former installation that had
fallen 
into disrepair were once taken out  on the ice of Lake Ontario where
they 
sank I was told. Some estimates of  the circa 1812 era place the 
population at about 35,000 conservatively.  Over 20 people were hung 
for military infractions, some for simply falling  asleep while on guard

duty and said to have begun the revision of military  justice in the US

services.





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